Pakistan fights to vaccinate ‘Every Last Child’ in new doc

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A still from "Every Last Child."

MOVIE REVIEW
Every Last Child

Running time: 83 minutes. Not rated (nothing offensive).

Grim but worthwhile, this documentary on the war against polio in Pakistan often recalls our own anti-vaxer movement, with needlessly sickened children the depressing commonality. The difference here is scope: As one of only three countries still grappling with polio outbreaks, Pakistan, home to 80 percent of cases, saw a public-health emergency declared just last year.

After the Taliban issued a ban on vaccinations in 2012, health workers became public targets: One of the film’s subjects is the relative of two women shot to death while administering polio drops. Another worker chillingly remarks, “If it’s my destiny to die here, so be it.”

Director Tom Roberts (“Alfred & Jakobine”) interweaves several subjects: a man crippled by polio as a child, a team of WHO workers struggling to rebrand the health campaign, and a paralyzed toddler being fitted for leg braces. Roberts also interviews vaccine opponents (all male), who rely on foreign mistrust, misconceptions and a preference for religion over modern medicine. That intractable position — buoyed by murderous fundamentalists — looms over the film, as well as the future of global health.



Pakistan fights to vaccinate ‘Every Last Child’ in new doc | New York Post

 

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'Every Last Child' review: Documentary details the difficult fight to eradicate polio from Pakistan
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, June 3, 2015, 1:37 PM

This harrowing — yet nonetheless inspiring — documentary looks at the myriad hurdles in the fight to eradicate polio from Pakistan. More than 80% of the world’s cases are in Pakistan, with an explosion since the Taliban began banning a polio vaccine in 2012.

That move was insane. Health care providers now must risk their lives just to give the minimum of three vaccinations needed.

The film chronicles the efforts of World Health Organization officials and volunteers with the Justice for Health initiative. They go door-to-door with medical kits that address nine childhood diseases; they don’t say it’s for polio specifically. We see some adults and kids who weren’t helped in time.

Mostly, though, there’s hopefulness here, and determination to win a fight worth fighting.


'Every Last Child' review: Fighting polio in Pakistan - NY Daily News